Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto’s manga, which is one of the most popular in the world and whose anime adaptation has captured many fans, including in Ukraine, will get a movie adaptation, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

The film will be directed and written by Destin Daniel Cretton, known for his work on Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Short Term 12 and other projects. The movie will be produced by Lionsgate.

During his visit to Tokyo, Cretton received a kind of blessing from manga author Masashi Kishimoto.

“When I heard of Destin’s attachment, it happened to be right after watching a blockbuster action film of his, and I thought he would be the perfect director for Naruto,” said Kishimoto in a statement. “After enjoying his other films and understanding that his forte is in creating solid dramas about people, I became convinced that there is no other director for Naturo. In actually meeting Destin, I also found him to be an open-minded director who was willing to embrace my input, and felt strongly that we would be able to cooperate together in the production process.”

This quote suggests that Kishimoto will also be involved in the production of the movie. This gives us hope that the movie will not be the worst, but in the absence of any other details, it is too early to draw conclusions.

Lionsgate has been working on a movie based on the famous anime since 2015, but since then, no details about the project have been revealed except for rumors. So this is the first real news that reveals at least a little bit about the upcoming film adaptation.

In addition to Cretton, Jayuno Munford is also working on the film adaptation as a director. They are joined by Avi Arad, Ari Arad and Amy Yu of Arad Productions, who are behind the upcoming Borderlands video game adaptation, and Jeremy Latcham (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor of Thieves).

It’s worth noting that Naruto is not the first work of Japanese art to be adapted by Western studios. Last summer, Netflix released a series based on the manga One Piece, which turned out to be surprisingly good. One of the key moments of that adaptation was the involvement of manga author Einichiro Oda in the production of the show.

It wasn’t the first time Netflix made a good live-action adaptation of anime. There were setbacks with such popular and fan-favorite franchises as Cowboy Bebop and Death Note, but they still succeeded. However, whether Lionsgate will succeed remains a mystery.

The biggest problem with the movie adaptation may be that it will be made in a movie format. Naruto is a huge story, with 700 manga chapters and 722 anime episodes, so it will be impossible to fit the whole story into one movie.

Lionsgate can realize only the beginning of the story to introduce new fans to the story of Naruto Uzumaki and his friends. This will allow them to capture a larger audience and start a good world-building for further possible sequels in the series format. An alternative would be a completely original Naruto story.

Given a good script and the right cast, a new movie adaptation can replicate the success of One Piece, but it’s all too easy to make mistakes and go in the wrong direction when adapting anime.

Still, the best option would be to make several films that would fully cover the most important moments from the first story arc of the manga, which shows the chunin exam and the attack of the Village Hidden in Sand on the Village Hidden in Leaves. However, only time will tell which way the authors will go.

Still, while there are no announcements or information about the cast, I have high hopes for the upcoming adaptation and hope that Lionsgate will take into account the success of One Piece to work on Naruto.